Head due west from the centre of Inverurie and once beyond the A90 bypass you
find yourself on increasingly minor roads that climb gently uphill. Follow the
tourist signs and you end up in a small car park, from which field tracks
continue uphill to Easter Aquhorthies Stone Circle.

The Recumbent Stone

Rear of the
Recumbent Stone

South Side of the
Circle

Approach to the
Circle

What you find is one of around 90 recumbent stone circles to have
survived in Aberdeenshire. The name
comes from their common feature, a focal point on one side of the circle formed
by a stone laid horizontally (or recumbent) flanked by vertical stones.

These circles arrived in the
Aberdeenshire landscape
during the centuries around 2000BC, though at Easter Aquhorthies the raised
embankment that surrounds the stones, whose outer face is retained by a dry
stone wall is thought to be a relatively recent addition, perhaps being
constructed in the 1700s or 1800s.

End View
of the Recumbent Stone

West Side of
Circle

North West Side
of Circle

North West Side from
Behind

The stone circle at Easter Aquhorthies measures some 19.5m in
diameter, and is close to circular in plan, probably making it one of the
earlier stone circles to be built in
Aberdeenshire. The
builders of many of these circles chose superb locations for them. Easter
Aquhorthies is no exception, and it offers extensive views to the east.

The recumbent stone measures some 3.8m in length and is thought to
weigh around 9 tons. It is made of reddish granite that was probably brought
here from Bennachie, a mountain a few miles to the west. The flankers are made
of grey granite, some 2.3m height. Two large blocks project into the ring from
the recumbent stone, making this side of the ring feel even more than usually
"altar-like".

Most of the individual standing stones in the circle are made of
porphry, a reddish rock. There is one exception, a rock made of a hard
substance called jasper. They decline in size from about 1.8m high next to the
flankers to 1m on the opposite side of the circle. The centre of the circle
rises slightly, and it is thought this could indicate the site of a ring
cairn.

When you visit a stone circle like Easter Aquhorthies, you
inevitably begin to wonder how and why a people who were probably fully
occupied simply feeding themselves and their families should have had the
desire, or the resources, to construct on such a large scale. No-one who has
ever visited a stone circle would deny that there must have been something very
spiritual about their role. It has also been suggested that at least some of
Aberdeenshire's
recumbent stone circles had roles in acting as a lunar calendars, allowing
accurate identification of different parts of the farming cycle.

Across Aberdeenshire, stone
circles have met with a variety of different fates over the millennia which
have elapsed since they were built. Some doubtless disappeared without trace,
while others remain in only fragmentary form. At Easter Aquhorthies it seems
that the spiritual value of what the ancestors built carried a power that has
influenced people ever since.

The protecting embankment and wall can be seen as a sign of this.
Another is in the very name of the stone circle itself. "Aquhorthies" probably
comes from the Gaelic, but
opinions differ as to whether it means "Field of Prayer" or "Field of the
Pillar Stone". Either way it suggests a continuing consciousness of the
stones.